Adele pioneers use of ‘compact disc’ format with new album ’25’

Will ‘CDs’ revolutionize the way will listen to these tearjerker tunes?

Adele made waves around the globe on Friday with the release of her new album, 25. But, in a stunning move, she chose to opt out of streaming her album on services like Spotify. Instead, she’s making the highly anticipated album available on a bizarre new platform called a “compact disc,” or “CD.”

Incredibly slim and circular in shape, a CD is roughly the size of a 2D bagel. The shiny, touchable technology may appeal to younger listeners who like their gadgets to be flashy and eye-catching.

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However, the platform also requires a separate “CD player” for listening. These devices are oddly bulky. Massive “portable” versions are equipped with a handle for toting. The smallest, slimmest versions of these players cannot even fit into average-size pants or jacket pockets.

In a statement provided exclusively to the Daily Dot*, Spotify urged Adele to reconsider her choice to reject streaming.

“We love and respect you, Adele. These discs, they’re horribly inconvenient. And they don’t love you the way we love you,” the company said. “Please, Adele, come back to us. Or at the very least pen a bonus track about what we could have been.”

Still hoping to reunite with Adele, the streaming service has posted a somber placeholder for the album, with a promise that they are “working on” repairing the relationship.

Spotify

Yet Adele and her label, Columbia Records, appear confident that consumers will take to the strange new technology. Columbia is shipping 3.6 million units of these “compact discs” to the U.S.

Retailers like Target and Best Buy are hoping the strange objects will appeal to shoppers as a fun and unusual holiday gift that could double as a tree ornament. “It’s really shiny,” a representative for Target told the Daily Dot.** “People like shiny stuff, right?”